BHA: Causal powers of absences? and other things

[Louis Irwin <lirwin1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Caroline,

No fair asking hard questions.  But since you did, I will try to reply with
the caveat that the confidence of the tone does not necessarily reflect my
confidence in the positions stated.

Bhaskar's claim is that determinate absences, and the processes of making
things absent, are essential to a proper causal understanding of the world.
Recall that CR understands causality to operate at a different level than
the surface phenomena that are to be explained.  DPF extends this basic
picture by holding that reference to determinate absences in the
description of causal mechanisms cannot be avoided.  To hold they cannot be
avoided must be, for a realist, the same as holding that they have
ontological import.

I think that only determinate absences have ontological import and will be
essential to understanding causality.  An example of an indeterminate
absence is caloric or a monsoon that never occurred in my backyard (where
monsoons never occur).  The denial that caloric exists is a "neustic
rejection" (RB's X-mark) of the proposition "caloric exists".  Such a
denial contrasts with the neustic acceptance (RB's check-mark) of the
phrastic negation ("-") of, say, the proposition "Socrates exists".  In
other words, the non-existence of Socrates has an ontological import that
the non-existence of caloric does not have, because Socrates once did
exist, unlike caloric.  Similarly, Pierre's absence from the cafe is a
determinate absence.   When I say that Socrates does not exist (because
he's dead) or Pierre is absent from the cafe, the ontological import of
those absences are quite different from my saying that caloric does not
exist or there was no monsoon in my backyard yesterday.  That, anyway, is
my reading of p. 41.

In the example at hand, a non-existent monsoon in my backyard is not a
determinate absence and has no ontological import.  However, the monsoon
for which I made preparation is determinate and does have ontological
import; it was not just any non-existent monsoon (like the ones in my
backyard), it was a specific non-existent monsoon on Samoa.  Now you
rejoined that everything could be explained by reference to presences, and
the use of a reference to absence was at best grammatical. Specifically it
was my beliefs that caused my preparations, and my beliefs in turn were
caused by, say, weather projections and alerts.  Is there realy an
essential need to refer to absences in order to describe the causal
situation here?  The temptation to say no is probably actualistic at heart:
when we observe the surface phenomena of facts and events, all we see are
presences. Is it really possible to understand causally all the events,
actions and intentions without reference to an impending monsoon that never
materialized?  If not, then RB has a case.  It is important to see just how
demanding the requirement that the causal nature of the intentions and
actions be analyzed without reference to absence is: it may be nothing less
than a complete actualistic description.

I think the ozone hole example is more straightforward.  Sure, it was an
increased exposure to sunlight that caused an increase in skin cancer cases
(and let's say we understand the relevant causal mechanisms by which
exposure to sunlight causes skin cancer).  But we want to know what in turn
caused the increased exposure to sunlight.  The answer is the absence of
ozone up in the sky somewhere (sorry I forget which -sphere it is normally
at).  Unless you are looking for an actualistic state description, I don't
see how you can avoid essential causal reference to the absence of ozone.

One final word on nomenclature and a note to Ruth.  I like to contrast
presences and absences and treat them the same as positive and negative
existents respectively.  But absences can be present, so that nomenclature
can be confusing.  I guess that is why RB invents "onts" and "de-onts" for
positve and negative things respectively, both having ontological import.
The absence of Pierre is then a de-ont which can be present.  The
non-existence of Socrates is also a de-ont, but the non-existence of
caloric is not (being an indeterminate absence with no ontological import).
 Personally I think everything would be clear if RB were to use "presence"
and "absence" in place of "ont" and de-ont" respectively and then use the
predicates "is present" and "is absent" when needed.  I think he probably
does this in the text anyway, since "ont" and "de-ont" don't occur that often.

Louis Irwin






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